The Black Hole of Anxiety Attacks

For most people, anxiety seems to come from nowhere and hit them like a sledgehammer. One minute, more or less happily living your life, the next, terrified and distraught, struggling to breathe perhaps, convinced you are dying, or that someone else will die and it will all be your fault.

Maybe you visit your doctor straight away, maybe you struggle on alone for as long as you can, but sooner or later you will be told that it's anxiety. Just anxiety.

This doesn't make any sense. You know what anxiety is. It's glancing at the clock and wondering uneasily why someone is late. It's double checking that you put the handbrake on when parking on a hill. It's not this living nightmare that turns every minute of every day into a torment of worrying.

Except that it is. Your normal anxiety has got out of control and turned into an Anxiety Disorder. In other words, everybody has some anxiety, but not everybody has Anxiety. In this article, when we give anxiety a capital 'A' we are talking about an illness, and you can recover from it.

There is good help available on the state health scheme, but it can mean a long wait as your name works its way up the list. If you are housebound, the wait for a visiting therapist is likely to be even longer. Why not try to help yourself in the meantime?

Some people are able to stage a full recovery through self-help. Others may still need help from a professional to finish their work, but they will go into the sessions armed with self-knowledge and an improved understanding of their illness.

Anxiety is a black hole. It sucks in your hopes, your pleasures, your plans for the future and above all your energy. It's picky though. It leaves behind fears, worries, and exhaustion. No wonder it's hard to pick yourself up and find the energy for a recovery program. No wonder you feel like staying in your safe place and doing as little as possible.

It is possible to turn this round. It is possible to come back from the black hole of Anxiety. I want to help you set up and follow a self-help recovery program. Working at your own pace, in small steps, you can learn to let go of Anxiety and reclaim your life.

There are two basic things that you need.

A notebook - you will need to write things down as you work through self help exercises. A notebook is better than a collection of scraps of paper, because sometimes you'll want to look back and see how far you've progressed.

A relaxation tape or CD - organize this now, before you start work, so that you have it to hand when you need it. You can buy them in any music store, and often in health food shops and chemists. If you are housebound you could ask someone to get it for you, use the mail order service provided by the charities in this field or search on Amazon.

Deep relaxation is an important part of recovery from Anxiety. This is not the same as relaxing in front of the TV, or with a book, or anything else you may choose. These are all good for you, but you will also need to learn to do full relaxation.

You should aim for a recording with a voice on it, rather than just music, and there are two main types:

1. Progressive muscle relaxation: the voice talks you through the process of clenching and relaxing every muscle in your body.
2. Visualization: the voice describes a relaxing scene, such as a beautiful garden or a deserted tropical beach.

Choose whichever type appeals to you most. It is okay to buy one of each and decide which you prefer after playing them. If you don't like the idea of listening to a strange voice, then you can record your own voice, or ask a trusted person to record it for you.

To finally overcome anxiety you need to arm yourself with some effective yet easy to learn anxiety management skills. With the right help this is not as hard as it may seem. Get all the help you need at ConquerYourAnxiety.org

Overcoming Anxiety Attacks

Overcoming Anxiety Attacks - A Thought is a Thing

In other articles we started to look at the potential power we all have within ourselves for overcoming anxiety attacks, but which we rarely fully use. We looked at the power of choice, and how you can start to exercise your control over your anxiety attack symptoms. Now we will go one step further and discover how your potential power can be tapped even more.

A few years ago I was on holiday in Cornwall and came across a museum of witchcraft. Among the exhibits was a section on spells (of course). Accompanying displays explained the basis on which they worked, which was fundamentally that 'a thought is a thing'. It was their simple way of describing the power of the mind. They understood that thoughts can be powerful enough to bring about real changes in people's lives - for good and for bad.

This concept is also to be found in a wide range of literature including business, religious and medical texts. It appears to underpin a lot of issues, including panic attacks.